Queiroga is wrong and says that 4,000 died from the vaccine; surveillance reports 1 death

The Minister of Health, Marcelo Queiroga, said this Monday (17) that there are 4,000 deaths proven to be related to vaccination against Covid-19, which went wrong and that clashes with official information from the ministry itself.

In an epidemiological bulletin published in October 2021, with data compiled up to that month, Saúde pointed to a death “having a causal relationship with vaccines”.

Questioned by leaf, the minister repeated the mistake and said that there are 3,935 deaths. Later, charged again on the data, he acknowledged that the information was wrong and said that they are cases under investigation.

The minister declined to share the most current consolidated data from the Ministry of Health on the investigation of adverse reactions to Covid vaccines.

When contacted, the health advisory did not respond.

The report found that the Ministry of Health considers that about 10 deaths in Brazil are associated with vaccination, in a universe of 325.71 million vaccines applied. At least 159 million people received the first dose, according to official data from the federal government.

Covid has killed more than 620,000 in Brazil since the beginning of the pandemic.

Queiroga cited the error in a Jovem Pan program, when asked by a commentator on the station about the suffering of “numerous families who are victims of the adverse effects of vaccines”. The interviewers asked Queiroga questions in a tone favorable to the Jair Bolsonaro (PL) government and with distorted data on the health crisis.

“We have at the Health Surveillance Secretariat registered 1.7 deaths for every 100,000 doses applied. This amounts to about 4,000 deaths where there is evidence of a causal relationship with the application of the vaccine”, said the minister.

“Whenever a strategy like this, of mass vaccination, is adopted, risks and benefits have to be weighed”, said the minister, who also mentioned that at the height of the pandemic, about 4,000 died a day.

The Health Minister also told Jovem Pan that speculation that he will leave the government to run in 2022 is “absolutely unfounded”. .

Queiroga’s misrepresentation about vaccination-related deaths fueled anti-vaccine discourse on social media. Until 10:20 pm this Monday, he did not report on social media or through official health channels that the data was wrong.

To Jovem Pan, the minister also stated that the pandemic is under control and that the omicron variant still does not put pressure on the health system as in previous moments.

Queiroga has been currying favor with Bolsonaro, a vector of misinformation about vaccines, to cling to his government post.

The minister took over the portfolio in March, advocating the use of masks and other measures to combat Covid, but modulated the speech. At the end of 2021, he participated in events at Palácio do Planalto without protective equipment.

He still has repeated speeches of the representative. “This issue of vaccination has worked because we respect individual freedoms. The president just said: sometimes it is better to lose your life than to lose your freedom,” said the minister in December.

On the 14th, Queiroga accused the governor of São Paulo, João Doria (PSDB), of “making a stand” with the start of childhood vaccination against Covid-19 in the country.

The governor, who is a pre-candidate for the Palácio do Planalto, was next to the indigenous boy Davi Seremramiwe Xavante, 8, the first child vaccinated against the coronavirus in Brazil.

“Politician João Doria underestimates the population. He has the vaccines of the government of Brazil and the Brazilian people in his hands on the platform. He thinks this will take him out of the 3% [de intenção de voto]. Give up! Your marketing will not change the face of your management. Paulistas deserve someone better,” Queiroga wrote on Twitter.

Bolsonaro opposes vaccination of children. In addition to questioning the effectiveness of vaccines, he guarantees that his minor daughter will not be immunized.